Ivan Bunin Quotes & Sayings

Such things and deeds as are not written down are covered with darkness, and given over to the sepulchre of oblivion. — Ivan Bunin

You should not have idle hands, you should always be working. All your life. — Ivan Bunin

On the second and the third night there was again a ball -- this time in mid-ocean, during a furious storm sweeping over the ocean, which roared like a funeral mass and rolled up mountainous seas fringed with mourning silvery foam. The Devil, who from the rocks of Gibraltar, the stony gateway of two worlds, watched the ship vanish into night and storm, could hardly distinguish from behind the snow the innumerable fiery eyes of the ship. The Devil was as huge as a cliff, but the ship was even bigger, a many-storied, many-stacked giant, created by the arrogance of the New Man with his ancient heart. — Ivan Bunin

And the years came and went, the decades. But now it's no longer possible to put it off any more: either now or never. The one final opportunity must be taken, for the hour is late and nobody will come upon me. — Ivan Bunin

Words are one thing, deeds are quite another. — Ivan Bunin

Everyone is silent, under the spell of the song. But it is strange: that desperate sorrow and that bitter reproach with which it throbs are sweeter than the most sublime, most passionate joy. — Ivan Bunin

Now there is a modern-day anthropology* for the criminal type: a great number of so-called 'born criminals' have pale faces, large cheekbones, a coarse lower jaw, and deeply shining eyes. How can one not recall this when one thinks of Lenin and thousands like him? How many pale faces, high cheekbones and strikingly asymmetric features mark the soldiers of the Red Army and, generally speaking, also of the common Russian people - how many of them, these savage types, have Mongolian atavism directly in their blood! They are all from Murom, the white-eyed Chud. And it is precisely these individuals, these very Russichi, who gave us so many 'daring pirates', so many vagabonds, escapees, scoundrels and tramps - it is precisely these people whom we have recruited for the glory, pride and hope of the Russian social revolution. So why should we feign surprise at the results? — Ivan Bunin